This is going to sound noobish, and I'm sure I'm missing something obvious, but what's the issue with pestilencing your dots off the boss onto an add, and then from the add back onto the boss (via rolling blood). I was under the impression that diseases you transfer via pestilence/rolling blood maintain the power they have off the primary target, so them bouncing from Boss to add and back to boss shouldn't be an issue?

I'm not sure how mechanically it works, but I would assume it goes like this...

Whenever diseases are placed on a target, it creates a new snapshot of your current str/crit/haste/etc. Rolling Blood would cause steps 2 and 3 to happen almost simultaneously if you're not careful.

Basically, as long as the primary target is never over-written, it wouldn't be an issue. Rolling blood would cause everyone to spreak the diseases, thus overwriting the primary target. The note is to be careful that you Don't over-write your festerblight target's diseases, and only use pestilence off him.

This is going to sound noobish, and I'm sure I'm missing something obvious, but what's the issue with pestilencing your dots off the boss onto an add, and then from the add back onto the boss (via rolling blood). I was under the impression that diseases you transfer via pestilence/rolling blood maintain the power they have off the primary target, so them bouncing from Boss to add and back to boss shouldn't be an issue?

If you are attempting to spread diseases, you want to use pestilence (not rolling blood) and you only want to use it on the boss as that will not overwrite your diseases on the boss. There aren't really any great reasons to have rolling blood as festerblight due to adds normally being close enough to the boss to possibly overwrite (other than Ji-Kun for nests maybe).

As said above, when you pestilence the boss you take a new snapshot of your stats for the new diseases you are putting on adds. The general idea is that you take Unholy Blight to apply your diseases to the boss on pull, then use Outbreak to put your strong diseases on when you have your procs up.

Ah right I didn't know that pestilence causes a second snapshot on dots, I was under the assumption that it copied your diseases "point for point" as it where, makes a lot more sense now thanks ^^

To illustrate this further, if you spread diseases with low duration, the other targets will get full duration dots. Pestilence is a reapplication not really "Spreading Existing Blood Plague and Frost Fever" as the tooltip implies.

is there a predefined 'opener' for festerblight?
what i'm going now is pretty much aotd-> prepot-> ps -> ss > fsx2 + eng gloves and waiting for high str to use pestilence

You're better off speccing into UB and popping that whilst running into melee. That way you'll get increasing disease damage for the first 10 seconds and then you can finish it off with an Outbreak once you're as close to the end of your Feather as possible.

Do you guys think I would be successful if I went unholy full time? I enjoy the play style moreso than Frost and I enjoy having a pet, and I don't much want to have two DPS specs. I get more use out of a tanking off-spec.

us battle net/wow/en/character/kiljaeden/Valyxx/advanced

I'm rocking the sha-touched axe+gem and an LFR Ji-Kun in place of those PvP pieces.

I'm looking for a combination of Empirical and Anecdotal evidence here, as math vs experience often contradict.

Is it worth playing Festerblight (I know it's technically always 'ideal' to get pumped diseases) until you have Fabled Feather / Shado-pan / Primordius trinkets?

And by worth it, I mean prioritizing the weaker Festering Strike over the stronger Scourge Strike, as well as having raid-assignments changed to slightly favor us, or is it not such a large/viable boost until we have the aforementioned trinkets?

I'm looking for a combination of Empirical and Anecdotal evidence here, as math vs experience often contradict.

Is it worth playing Festerblight (I know it's technically always 'ideal' to get pumped diseases) until you have Fabled Feather / Shado-pan / Primordius trinkets?

And by worth it, I mean prioritizing the weaker Festering Strike over the stronger Scourge Strike, as well as having raid-assignments changed to slightly favor us, or is it not such a large/viable boost until we have the aforementioned trinkets?

There is still a gain when using non throne trinkets but it really depends on your gear. You should logout in pve gear for a better idea.

I only have PvE Gear... I am Breyers of Blackrock, not the Troll Deathknight. :P

Spark is going to make a good festerblight on most bosses difficult at best due to the stacks not coming at the beginning of the fight. Xuen is very weak for festerblight compared to shadopan/feather/primordious. I would pick up the Shadopan trinket as it looks like you could use the exp it would be a good upgrade from xuen.

I wouldn't change raid assignments based on festerblight when you don't have the trinkets for it. In general you should get similar, if not better results from festerblight if you can get your trinkets to line up, but it really comes down to luck, especially with your trinkets.

I'd suggest sticking with a normal UH priority for the most part. You can always swap between them mid fight if the stars align and you get strong diseases out there.

It is thought by some that spark is actually preferred on fights like jin-rokh and ji-kun, where there damage buff mechanics that come a little bit into the fight.

It also looks like you are still progressing through normal modes, iron qon is no good for festerblight for the most part, it is strong on twins because your diseases keep ticking even after the first boss goes away and (personally) I don't think its worth it for lei shen but others will fight me on that .

So from the datamined info on the front page will that make festerblight less appealing now with the the buff to scourge strike or will we be trying to balance a normal unholy/festerblight mixed rotation?

Are you sure? We're fairly reliant on the fact 6 secs of higher damage diseases + festering strike makes up for the 2 scourge strikes we could use. With the gap between them being reduced, it seems like it damages the playstyle. Has anyone done some theorycrafting on the difference?

The most recent round of PTR changes reduce the damage of Festering Strike by 12.5%, and increase Scourge Strike by 22%.

Now, from what I know of Festerblight, you are able to overall increase your DPS on select fights by 5-8%, which is significant but not gamebreaking. I'm wondering that if the increase in damage from scourge strike, and decrease in festering strike will essentially counteract the damage gained from festerblighting. I don't know the math on it, but I would assume that was essentially the intended change - to make the standard rotation comparable or better than a festerblight scenario.

Quick question. I just started this and I'm loving it. Does Unholy Blight refresh the duration, or is it a basic reapply? And if so, is the Unholy Blight last in the priority (Outbreak, Plague Strike, and Unholy Blight). I assume you would never want to use Unholy Blight if, say your Feather buff is about to expire.

Quick question. I just started this and I'm loving it. Does Unholy Blight refresh the duration, or is it a basic reapply? And if so, is the Unholy Blight last in the priority (Outbreak, Plague Strike, and Unholy Blight). I assume you would never want to use Unholy Blight if, say your Feather buff is about to expire.

It reapplies dots each time it ticks.

You can use Unholy Blight, but make sure you have a cancel macro to shut if off when you don't want it to reapply.